‘Maybe. Makes as much sense as anything.’
We both gave sad laughs. Sighed. Glenn rubbed his hands together and gestured across the windscreen. Before us lay the marsh, currently half-covered by the high tide, the calm, shallow sea scintillating every time the sun broke through the clouds. Faced with that, I understood perfectly why you loved it there so much.
‘Ready?’
‘Definitely.’
As I got out and turned to close the door, I realised I’d been sitting on his coat the entire time. ‘Sorry,’ I winced. ‘Didn’t notice it. It’s all crumpled now.’
‘Don’t worry about it. I barely wear it anyway.’
I raised an eyebrow.
‘I’m tough,’ he joked.
True to his word, he carried the parka despite there being no warmth to the weak February sun. Personally, I was glad of my hat and gloves, let alone my thermal coat. Once again I was struck by how cold you must have been, Beth. Your coat had never been discovered, or your rucksack.
*
After twenty minutes we had walked to the place where you were found.
‘Beth was dressed up, like she was going to meet someone,’ I said, explaining how the police had shown us an outfit totally unlike the one you had left the house in. ‘Police believe she was attacked here, then dragged into the mere and thrown in. As if she was nothing,’ I explained. My stomach twisted like a rag being wrung out.
Despite everything, despite the fact that I thought I’d been over this so many times in my head that there were no feelings left; despite the fact that I thought I was hardened to everything now, a couple of tears escaped. I sniffed, but couldn’t be bothered to wipe them away. But as I carried on talking I forced myself to stick to the facts and be businesslike.
‘Whoever did it must have thought she would sink. They didn’t weigh her down or anything. So she floated in the pond, face up, in her little outfit. I thought hypothermia would have killed her, but it was the freezing temperatures that saved her. Which is ironic, really, because she’s always hated being cold.’
‘The cold saved her?’
‘Mmm. Apparently it’s best to keep head injuries very cold as it lessens the damage done. Even in hospital, after her operation, Beth was kept under a special blanket that looked like a Li-lo on top of her – it had freezing air blown into it to keep her temperature down. Not that it seems to have helped.’
I turned away, unable to look any more, only to be confronted with the little shrine by the sycamore. The blue and white crime scene tape had been removed, and there were ribbons tied to the tree. They waved in the wind, defiantly bright against the muted tones of the land. Looking at them, hope replaced my despair: they were a symbol that you would overcome your injuries.
My little girl would get better. You are a fighter, I thought.
Glenn read the messages from friends and neighbours. Like the amateur sleuths we were, we searched around for dropped clues the police might have missed.
‘I thought there might be some footprints we could follow,’ Glenn shrugged apologetically, looking down at the mired trail of tracks from well-wishers, police and goodness knows who else. It was completely futile. I’d been kidding myself, thinking I could do a better job than the official investigation.
The cold made the pair of us sniff, our noses bright red. We turned and made our way back, while I filled Glenn in on the terrible moment I had first realised you were missing. The cold almost took my breath away, though, and Glenn even put his coat on. It was a blessed relief to jump back into the van.
*
Immediately, Glenn turned the ignition key and put the heater on full blast. The warmth made my fingers tingle almost painfully.
He began rooting through the door’s side pocket.
‘I’ve a pen and notebook in here. We should write everything down.’
I gave him a grim smile. ‘You actually, genuinely want to do this? Find my daughter’s attacker?’
‘Well, yeah.’ He looked down, embarrassed. ‘If you don’t want to, it’s fine. I only want to help. It’s awful – obviously – what’s happened. There’s not much I can do, but I’m quite good at solving puzzles.’
‘Yeah, I remember you with that Rubik’s Cube,’ I said, taking the mickey. He had pulled off all the stickers in frustration and stuck them back on, insisting to anyone who would listen at school that he had solved it.
He pulled a face. ‘I can certainly give this my best shot.’
Reaching out, he touched my hand. Squeezed it. I muttered a ‘thank you’, then pulled my hand away to crack open the steamed-up windows.
Finding a pen, Glenn opened a bright pink Moleskine notebook. Not the sort of thing I’d have thought he’d buy at all, given he lived in scruffy workmen’s clothes, but each to their own.
The inside of the van was neater than expected too. No discarded food wrappers, very little mud – unlike the outside. The dashboard sparkled because it had recently been cleaned. It was clearly an old van, but well-loved; the gearstick so worn the numbers on it could barely be made out, and the steering wheel smoothed from hands constantly running over it.
‘What have we learned from visiting the scene?’ Glenn asked.
‘Nothing?’
‘No, come on, we’ve got to have learned something.’ As he thought, his mouth formed a half-smile. ‘Why was she on the marsh, dressed up? It’s cold, it’s muddy, it’s bloody windy.’
As he spoke, he wrote those exact words in his little book.
‘Well, right after the attack I spoke with Chloe. She said Aleksy had a crush on her.’
Glenn noted down the name, after I’d spelled Jachowski for him.
‘So he fancies her… How well does Beth know this Aleksy?’
I shrugged. ‘They get the same school bus. He’s in his final year at Wapentake Secondary, doing his A levels, so they don’t have much opportunity to socialise apart from the bus. Chloe told me they had been chatting on there sometimes, but that seems to be the full extent of his flirtation.’
‘To have lured Beth to the marsh, it’s got to have been somebody she knew, and knew well. Unless she was abducted and driven here from somewhere else.’
‘I think her being picked up in the village and driven here is likeliest. Our FLO – Family Liaison Officer the police have given us – has told me there’s no evidence of her getting the bus into Wapentake. No CCTV of her in the town, either.’
We went over the same ground I’d quizzed Chloe about. I couldn’t think of anyone you fancied. But then, you clearly hadn’t told me everything about your life, judging from the fact you had lied to me about where you were going the night you were attacked.